The 21-year-old Gujarat Titans left-handed batsman Sai Sudharsan put on a clinic of classical strokeplay and also elegant, pure timing in the IPL 2023 final against Chennai Super Kings to lit up the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad.
While the match was being played under the threat of rain, and CSK had been wary of the Shubaman Gill threat, they were hit by the Sai storm in the night (reserved day) of the IPL 2023 final.
Shubman Gill and W Saha got GT off to a quick start with their 67-run opening stand in 7 overs. Came in Sudharsan, who had scored 43 runs in Qualifier 2 against Mumbai Indians, and the youngster started off steadily. Sudharsan was 20 off 17 balls by the end of the 12th over before he took off.
He slogged Jadeja and Theekshana for three sixes and then brought up his fifty with a couple of boundaries off Pathirana. Sudharsan turned on a beast mode after that: hit smashed Deshpande for 6, 4, 4, 4.
Getting close to his century, He cracked Pathirana for two sixes on the first two balls of the last over to reach 96. However, on the third ball he got out lbw. The youngster walked off to a standing ovation from the capacity Ahmedabad crowd for his sensational innings of 96 (47) comprising 8 fours and 6 sixes.
Meanwhile, in a shameful aspect of social media, young Sai Sudharsan was abused by some CSK fans.
This is another cowardice act from some fans following on from the Virat Kohli and RCB fans abusing Shubman Gill and his sister earlier.
Here check out some of comments by CSK fans under Sudharsan’s Instagram posts where the youngster is getting abused by CSK fans for scoring runs against their team.
Earlier, Dhoni had won the toss and elected to field first.
Teams:
Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Hardik Pandya(c), Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohit Sharma, Noor Ahmad, Mohammed Shami
Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni(w/c), Deepak Chahar, Matheesha Pathirana, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana
